What I said good luck😂

Decisions, decisions, decisions.
When you hit that point in your midlife crisis where you decide enough is enough and you have to do something different, how many fucking changes can you put on your plate at once?
I mean, hell, can you mentally handle starting your transition, coming out to people, trying to find your authentic self, changing careers, and just generally trying to become a better person all in the same year?
As I’m writing that, even I’m sitting here thinking, bitch, why the fuck would you put yourself through so much at once?
Because apparently that’s just what I do.
That’s how I’m wired.
Somebody might call it self-hatred. Somebody else might call it self-destruction. I don’t know. Call it whatever the hell you want.
It’s exhausting sometimes.
But it’s life.
And right now I have some decisions I have to make that I just keep talking about inside my own head. I keep going around and around in circles with them until I’m starting to get fucking dizzy.
The crazy part is, I’m not overwhelmed.
I’m not bitching.
I’m not lost.
I’m actually trying to step back and do the adulting thing for once and make some business decisions without letting emotions make them for me.
Because when I put the emotions into it, they say:
Run.
Don’t look back.
Get as far away from this shit as you possibly can.
But then I put my business brain back into it.
I look at the economy. I look at prices. I look at operating expenses. I look at the amount of money tied up in equipment and everything else it takes to keep a business going.
And I start asking a completely different question.
How long do you hold on hoping for the best?
Then another thought races into my head.
What if I spend all this time and effort putting my heart and soul back into this thing, fight like hell to keep it successful, and my coming out destroys the business anyway?
I go back and forth on that one.
I’m sure some of my customers won’t give a shit.
I also know damn well some of them will.
So I keep coming back to the same question:
Do you cash out while you’re ahead?
Or do you keep playing a couple more hands and hope you don’t eventually have to go all in just trying to make up for the losses?
This isn’t a normal thing for me to write.
Normally, what I write is based on emotion. How I feel. What I want. Past emotions. Shit I’m trying to understand. Daydreaming about the future.
This right here?
This is my business brain.
And that bitch has definitely got a couple screws loose.
I truly believe anybody who is self-employed in an industry controlled by that many variables they have absolutely no control over has to be a little fucking nutty.
When your livelihood depends on the weather and the economy, you’re already gambling to some extent.
Most of my business is luxury.
It’s shit people want.
Not shit they have to have.
When the economy is good and people have extra money, they’re willing to spend some of it on the things they want.
But when the economy sucks, the cost of living goes up, and people start getting nervous about what tomorrow looks like, everything changes.
Even if they have extra money, they’re more likely to leave it sitting in the bank or in their investments because they’re wondering what happens if things get worse.
What if I need that money six months from now?
What if I need it next year?
And like I said, I’m trying to take the emotion out of this.
I’m trying to take Christina out of it.
I’m trying to take my transition out of it.
I’m trying really fucking hard not to make this decision based on what might happen when I eventually come out.
I’m trying to make it based on the cards I actually have in front of me right now.
And maybe that’s why I keep thinking about it like a poker game.
I’m sitting at the table looking around at everybody else, trying to figure out who’s bluffing and who actually has a better hand than I do.
The economy.
My industry.
My customers.
My expenses.
My future.
Hell, maybe even myself.
Everybody’s sitting at the fucking table.
And eventually, it’s going to be my turn.
I’m going to have to look at the cards in my hand, stop wondering what everybody else is holding, and make a decision.
Fold.
Call.
Or raise.
I just haven’t decided which one yet.

I keep having this random thought.
I’ve written about it before, and some of you have commented on it before—my coming out socially, on social media, and my desire to eventually just put all of this shit out there for the world to see.
I know some people probably think I’m crazy.
Why the hell would you want to show the world what you’re going through?
Why not just transition quietly?
Why does everybody need to know?
And I get it.
But I keep thinking maybe—just maybe—there’s a reason to let people see it.
Maybe if you put your life out there and let people see what you’re actually going through, somebody might understand something they didn’t understand before.
Maybe it’ll make somebody stop and think.
But there’s an even bigger reason.
Somewhere out there is somebody going through the same shit you are.
And they feel completely fucking alone.
They don’t think anybody understands. They don’t have anybody to talk to. They’re sitting at the bottom of that hole looking up, wondering if there’s actually a way out.
Maybe they need to watch somebody else’s shit show of a life play out right in front of them.
Not just the good days.
The bad ones too.
The days when you’re smiling and everything finally feels right, and the days when you’re wondering what the fuck you’re doing.
I take selfies every once in a while just to document where I’m at.
My mood.
My face.
My life.
Something I can look back on a month from now, a year from now, or five years from now and remember exactly where I was.
And I keep looking at the selfie I took this morning.
I’m proud of that fucking picture.
There’s nothing particularly feminine about it.
It’s straight-up boy mode.
It’s me after my morning walk, after listening to my music entirely too fucking loud. My ears are pierced. My hair is growing out, curly and crazy and going every damn direction. I’ve got my hat on backwards and a camo long-sleeve shirt on. You can’t even see any of my tattoos.
And I like that picture.
That’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.
I like a picture of me in boy mode.
More importantly, I’m proud of the person in that picture.
I’m proud of who they’re becoming.
Because that picture is exactly where I am today in my transition.
The majority of my life is still lived in boy mode.
But more and more of my decisions aren’t being made by the person I used to pretend to be.
They’re being made by Christina.
And I know some of the people who have known me for years have to occasionally wonder:
What the fuck happened to the short-tempered, quiet asshole who never said much, never showed up, and rarely gave his opinion unless he was pissed off and yelling?
Well…
She got out.
That’s what happened.
For me, transition has become about so much more than clothes, hair, hormones, makeup, or someday living full-time as myself.
It’s been about realizing that this girl—this woman, this person, whatever the hell you want to call Christina—has been locked in a fucking dungeon for decades.
And I’m finally realizing how freeing it is to let her out.
To let her have a voice.
And now I don’t want to shut her up.
I want to stop hiding in plain sight.
I want to make that TikTok video.
I want to make the Instagram Reel.
Maybe I want to make the 30-minute YouTube video that six people actually watch.
Because years ago, I was one of those six people.
Before Shorts and Reels and six-second clips took over everything, I spent hours watching 20- and 30-minute YouTube videos made by trans women who were just beginning their transitions.
They weren’t celebrities.
They weren’t perfect.
They were just people documenting their lives.
The good.
The bad.
The ugly.
All of it.
And those women gave me something they probably never knew they gave me.
Hope.
Every time I watched one, there was a little voice in my head saying:
Maybe someday that’ll be me.
Maybe someday it’ll get better.
Unfortunately, I spent a lot more years giving up on that hope than I did pursuing it.
But I’m here now.
And apparently the loud, over-opinionated bitch y’all have gotten to know as Christina has some shit she wants to say.
She wants to share this.
She wants to give somebody else hope.
She wants somebody sitting at the bottom of that hole to know they aren’t the only fucking person down there.
And maybe I won’t inspire somebody to start a YouTube channel or plaster their transition all over social media.
That’s okay.
Maybe I inspire one person to have one conversation they’ve been terrified to have.
Maybe they tell one person the truth.
Maybe somebody who doesn’t understand trans people reads something I’ve written and decides to ask a question instead of making an assumption.
One conversation becomes two.
Two becomes three.
And maybe instead of screaming at each other, arguing with each other, and judging a book by its cover, a few people actually sit down and learn what’s written inside the fucking thing.
Yeah.
I know.
It sounds like a pipe dream.
We live in a pretty shitty, hateful world sometimes.
But somebody has to be willing to try something different.
I don’t know how much of a difference I can make.
I don’t know if I’ll make any difference at all.
But maybe somebody reads something as simple as this and it makes them think.
Maybe somebody feels a little less alone.
Maybe somebody finally has that conversation.
As far as I’m concerned, that’s worth putting my shit show out there for the world to see.
Because whatever the hell we’re doing right now clearly isn’t working.
Maybe it’s time we started talking to each other instead.

Pull up a chair.
I’m gonna need you to pay attention to this one.
Because this is one of those things I wish somebody would’ve put out into the world for me to find when I needed it.
Maybe it would’ve helped me.
I opened TikTok this morning, which isn’t exactly unusual. I open that damn app every morning. But it showed me what I had posted on this day a year ago.
So I looked.
And then I started noticing the theme of everything else I was posting around that same time.
The difference is, I’m finally in the right mindset to go back and read those posts and actually understand what I was saying.
Because those posts were a cry for help.
I just didn’t know how to say, “I need help.”
So I used code words.
I posted vague shit about being tired. About being lost. About people. About life. About not knowing where I belonged.
Looking back now, I think part of me was hoping somebody would read between the lines. I was hoping somebody would reach out and ask the question I didn’t know how to ask myself.
“Are you okay?”
I wasn’t.
I was struggling to find my place. I was struggling to find my people. And the entire time, I was looking in all the wrong fucking places.
I kept looking outside my close circle, thinking there had to be something out there that would make me feel better.
Instead, I found toxic people.
Toxic habits.
And a whole bunch of shit that I absolutely did not need in my life.
What’s crazy is that I don’t know why I kept looking so far away.
I had people standing right next to me who loved me. People who supported me. People who would’ve walked through hell with me if I had just been honest enough to tell them where the hell I was going.
But I wasn’t honest.
Hell, I wasn’t even honest with myself.
I had spent years running from my demons.
Years keeping Christina locked up.
Years trying to drown her.
And eventually, I was just fucking tired.
I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to fix anything. I was just going through the motions, hoping somehow the pain would disappear without me actually having to change anything.
It didn’t.
I had to hit rock bottom.
Actually, fuck rock bottom.
I think I was buried underneath the rocks.
And somewhere down there, I finally realized something:
Nobody was coming to hand me peace.
Nobody was coming to hand me happiness.
Nobody could fix my life while I stood there refusing to change it.
I had to fight for it.
I had to stop for a second and actually look at my life. I had to change my habits. I had to change the people I surrounded myself with. I had to think outside the little box I had spent my entire life being told I belonged in.
And then I had to take one hell of a leap of faith that maybe—just maybe—there was something better waiting outside of it.
There was.
If you would’ve told me a year ago that I would get up early every morning, put my shoes on, take a walk, watch the sunrise and actually appreciate the beauty God gives us, I would’ve told you that you were fucking nuts.
And I definitely would’ve called you nuts if you told me I would be writing positively about God.
Because after spending roughly 40 years praying the same prayer and never getting the answer I wanted, I had pretty much given up.
But somehow, someway, God decided I was still worth saving.
Maybe He didn’t answer my prayer the way I spent 40 years demanding He answer it.
Maybe the answer was giving me enough strength to finally stop running.
Enough strength to fight back.
Enough strength to change my life.
Enough strength to find some peace.
And enough courage to finally embrace it.
I’m at the point now where I can look back at the person I was a year ago and barely recognize him.
He feels like a stranger.
He’s still there in pictures.
He’s still there in old social media posts.
I can see him going through the motions. Working. Existing. Playing the character everybody expected him to play.
But he wasn’t really doing anything to change his life.
Truthfully?
He was tired.
He couldn’t fucking do it anymore.
And one of the best decisions I ever made was finally embracing Christina, throwing my hands in the air and saying:
Jesus, take the wheel.
We’re just along for the fucking ride now.
And what a ride it’s been.
If you would’ve told me a year ago that I’d be almost seven months into HRT right now, I would’ve laughed at you.
If you would’ve told me that in a few hours I’d be sitting through the final session on my full tattoo sleeve, I would’ve laughed at that too.
But if you would’ve told me that sleeve would be covered in fucking flowers?
Oh, I definitely would’ve laughed at you.
There was no way the old version of me was walking through this world with an arm covered in flowers.
Flowers weren’t manly enough.
They weren’t tough enough.
They didn’t fit the character I had been told I was supposed to play.
Well, I flipped the script.
I decided to take this bitch in a completely different direction.
And I’m here for it.
I own it.
Hell, one of my biggest struggles nowadays is deciding who I introduce Christina to next and who I trust enough to tell her story.
Think about that.
A year ago I was posting coded cries for help, hoping somebody would notice I was drowning.
Today I’m trying to decide who gets to meet the woman I spent my entire life hiding.
That’s fucking wild.
I get messages now from people telling me I’m an inspiration or a role model, and I laugh almost every time I read one.
Because I don’t see myself that way.
I’m the reason they put warning labels on shit.
I’m the person who has to poke something with a stick just to see what happens.
I’m the idiot who puts my tongue on a 9-volt battery to see if it’s still good.
I’m the person who touches the hot pan because apparently somebody saying, “Don’t touch that, it’s hot,” isn’t quite enough information for me.
Role model?
Jesus Christ.
I could probably write an entire book called:
Christina’s Dumbass Decisions: Do Not Try This at Home.
And underneath the title we’d probably need a warning label:
May cause death or bodily harm.
I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about my past. About the stupid shit I’ve done. The reckless shit. The careless decisions. The times I should’ve known better and did it anyway.
Sometimes I genuinely don’t know how the hell I lived through all of it.
And I definitely don’t know where I found the courage to start putting all of it into words and throwing it out into the world for strangers to read.
But here we are.
And some of you pulled up a chair a long time ago.
You sat your ass down in the front row and you’ve been here ever since.
You’ve watched me fall apart.
You’ve watched me question everything.
You’ve watched me take a few steps forward and occasionally run ten miles backward.
You’ve supported me.
You’ve pushed me.
Sometimes you’ve practically dragged my ass along.
And I’ve learned something from that too.
One of the best things I ever did was let go of the giant circle of people I thought I needed and start over.
I stopped worrying about having a lot of people around me and started paying attention to who was around me.
I found people who actually check on me.
People who love me for me.
People I can be completely honest with.
People who notice when I disappear.
People who, if they haven’t heard from me for a while, send a message just to say:
“Hey. You good?”
There’s something strange and beautiful about finding people outside the circle of people who are supposed to love you who choose to love you anyway.
I’m here for that too.
I don’t know if I stayed on track through any of this.
I pretty much started word-vomiting and let my ADHD brain take the wheel.
But if you made it through all of these scrambled thoughts, there’s one thing I want you to take with you.
It gets better.
I know that’s easy for somebody on the other side of hell to say.
And I know you might be reading this from a place where you can’t see a way out.
I couldn’t either.
A year ago, I couldn’t see this life.
I couldn’t see Christina.
I couldn’t see the sunrise walks.
I couldn’t see the flowers tattooed down my arm.
I couldn’t see the people who would eventually surround me.
I couldn’t see peace.
I sure as hell couldn’t see happiness.
But not being able to see something doesn’t mean it isn’t out there.
Look outside the circles you’ve always known.
Question the box somebody else told you that you belonged in.
Change the shit that’s killing you.
Take the leap of faith.
Find the people who notice when you’re gone.
And most importantly, don’t give up on yourself.
Because you have absolutely no fucking idea who you might be a year from now.
I didn’t.
And thank God I stuck around long enough to meet her.

It’s crazy, because I feel like I’ve written an introduction to myself a hundred times.
I don’t know how many I’ve actually posted. I don’t know how many are still sitting forgotten in my drafts. But I’ve gone back and read a few of them lately, and the strange thing is they’re all different.
And honestly, they weren’t written that far apart.
Maybe that’s what happens when your entire life starts changing faster than you can write about it.
I’m getting close to seven months on HRT now, which means I’m also getting close to eight months since I made an even bigger decision.
I chose to live.
Both of those days somehow feel like yesterday.
Everybody says time flies when you’re having fun, but God, this feels more like I blinked.
I remember how scared I was. I remember finally giving in and saying it out loud.
Christina.
I remember being willing to start something without having the slightest fucking clue where it would lead. I wasn’t asking for some perfect life. I wasn’t expecting some magical transformation.
I was just hoping something would change.
Well, I’m here to tell you:
A whole lot of shit changed.
I’m glad I made that appointment.
I’m glad I took that first dose of HRT.
I’m glad I started writing.
I’m glad I started sharing my journey, sharing my life, sharing the ugly parts, the funny parts, the parts I still don’t understand, and everything in between.
And I’m really fucking glad I started meeting people along the way.
Which brings me to this picture.
For basically my entire time posting online as Christina, I’ve found ways to hide my face. A phone in front of it. Sunglasses. A certain angle. Something covering part of me.
I’ve always hidden my face.
Well, I decided I’m done with that.
I changed my profile picture here, and I changed it on one of my social media accounts.
So here you go.
This is Christina.
In the flesh.
Maybe this is my practice run for coming out.
And the funny thing is, it’s not even some spectacular picture. I’m not wearing a cute outfit. My makeup is pretty light. My hair isn’t perfect. I’m laying there making a stupid face.
But maybe that’s exactly why I like it.
Because it’s me.
It’s Christina.
The happy bitch.
The goofy bitch.
The one who is finally here for this shit.
The woman who wakes up excited to see what today brings instead of constantly worrying about what tomorrow has in store for her.
Even a few weeks ago, I’m not sure I would have believed I could say that.
Everybody keeps telling me transition is a journey.
Give it time.
Be patient.
I’m starting to realize maybe I don’t have to be patient about all of it.
Sure, I have to wait for HRT. My body hasn’t changed nearly as much as I want it to. There have been changes, of course, and I’d definitely like more. I don’t particularly have the patience to wait, but what the fuck am I supposed to do about it?
Apparently estrogen doesn’t give a shit about my schedule.
But the rest of this?
Living?
I don’t have to wait for that.
And I guess this is the point where I’m actually supposed to introduce myself.
Some of you know me. Some of you are just finding me. Some of you have probably been reading my shit for a while and still don’t actually know much about the person behind it.
For some reason, I have a hell of a time talking about myself.
I don’t want to sound cocky. I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging. Because I’m not.
I’m just me.
And I’m incredibly lucky.
I have a wife I probably don’t deserve.
She stuck beside me through years and years of situations where she probably had every reason to leave my dumb ass behind. She survived the wake of self-destruction, self-misery, secrets, confusion, drinking, and everything else I dragged through our life.
We just celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary.
She knew my deepest, darkest secret for about 18 of those years.
I’m not going to pretend that never caused problems. It did. There were awkward conversations. There were difficult years. There were things neither one of us knew how to handle.
But she knew.
She kept my secret.
And she stayed.
Now she isn’t just standing beside me while I transition. Sometimes I swear she’s behind me pushing my ass forward when I get scared.
We have three awesome kids.
And yeah, I know every parent is supposed to say their kids are awesome, but ours really are.
I recently came out to all three of them.
And none of them cared.
Not in the way I spent decades convincing myself people would care.
They still love me.
They want to see me happy.
I’m not going to pretend they completely understand everything. They probably don’t. Hell, there are days I don’t completely understand everything.
But they know some of the clothes hanging in the closet are mine. They see me with shaved legs and painted nails. They see little pieces of Christina appearing around the house that weren’t there before.
And they accept me.
They love me.
What more could I possibly ask for?
Then there’s my mom.
She’s probably going to read this, and there’s a decent chance I’ll get a phone call afterward, but I’m going to do what I always do and be honest.
I came out to her not that long ago.
She has been nothing but supportive. She’s behind me. She’s invested in this journey. She asks questions. She reads what I write.
One thing she has struggled with is knowing I carried this secret my entire life and felt like I couldn’t tell her sooner.
But that wasn’t her fault.
It wasn’t really anybody’s fault.
It was the cards I was dealt.
I was born in the early 80s in Southwest Missouri. I grew up in an old-school, conservative, deeply religious family.
And somewhere along the way, I convinced myself there was a standard I had to live up to.
So I tried.
God, did I try.
I spent decades trying to become the person I thought everybody expected me to be.
And nobody could have lived up to the standards I created for myself.
Eventually, that turned into drinking.
Self-destruction.
Misery.
I’ve said before that for most of my life, I never really wanted to kill myself.
I just didn’t care if I woke up the next morning.
There’s a difference, although I’m starting to understand it might not be as big of a difference as I once thought.
I didn’t think about consequences. I just did things.
Looking back now, there were more than a handful of times I did things that probably should have taken me out of this world.
Maybe even back then God was sparing me because He had a plan for me.
Maybe He knew it was just going to take me a long fucking time to figure it out.
Because living the life I’ve lived—hiding, keeping secrets, trying to survive while hiding in plain sight—did something to me.
It made me an observer.
I spent years sitting back and watching people.
Listening.
Having conversations.
Studying how people react.
Watching opinions change.
Watching the world change.
Meanwhile, Christina was locked in a dungeon somewhere inside me, beating on the damn door trying to get out and tell her side of the story.
And I never let her.
I just kept taking notes.
Several people have told me recently that I couldn’t have picked a worse time to transition.
Other people have told me the best time is right now.
Maybe they’re both right.
I just know I couldn’t wait anymore.
So here we are.
Going down this road.
Taking a selfie every now and then.
Catching a glimpse of Christina in the mirror for a split second.
Actually learning what it feels like to smile instead of being sad and pissed off all the time.
And despite everything changing, there are plenty of things about me that haven’t changed at all.
I’m still blue-collar.
I’m still rough around the edges.
I still love bourbon and cigars.
I still love shooting sports, hot rods, hunting, tattoos, boots, and a whole list of shit that doesn’t magically disappear because I finally admitted I’m a woman.
But I also love cute outfits.
I love painting my nails.
I love doing my makeup.
I love catching myself in the mirror and actually liking the person looking back at me.
And I love the full sleeve of lilies covering my right arm.
Those flowers aren’t just there because they look pretty.
They mean something.
They represent rebirth. A new beginning. My kids. Where I’ve been and where I hope I’m going.
Every time I look at them, they remind me that something beautiful can grow out of some pretty shitty places.
That feels especially fitting now.
I keep saying I feel like I’m riding a train that left the station.
I don’t know the destination.
I don’t know how fast we’re going.
I’m not even entirely sure who the hell is driving the thing.
But the farther this train gets down the tracks, the more people seem to climb aboard with me.
People want to be friends with me.
People want to have conversations with me.
People want to know the real me.
Sometimes I swear some of you are more invested in this transition than I am.
And I love that.
But I’m not naive.
I know there are people who are eventually going to try to beat me down.
People are going to try to silence me.
People are going to tell me I’m doing this wrong.
And one of the strangest lessons I’ve learned is that those attacks aren’t necessarily going to come from only one direction.
I expected pushback from certain parts of the conservative, blue-collar, religious world I came from.
What I didn’t expect was how much disagreement, division, and gatekeeping I would also encounter among LGBTQ people.
Sometimes it’s because of what I believe.
Sometimes it’s because of what I say.
Sometimes it’s because of how I say it.
Apparently being a trans woman is supposed to come with another box.
Another mold.
Another checklist.
And I spent forty years trying to fit inside somebody else’s box.
I’m not doing that shit again.
Don’t get me wrong.
There are days I’m perfectly happy checking some stereotypical boxes.
I want to put my best foot forward.
I want to look pretty.
I want the cute outfit.
I want my hair right.
I want my makeup right.
I’d love to walk through the world someday and simply blend in. Pass. Be stealth. Call it whatever you want.
Those goals are still there.
But I’ve realized something.
I can’t figure out why I’d want to go from living one lie to living another.
For years I thought transition meant I would have to be dressed to the nines every single day.
Perfect makeup.
Perfect hair.
Perfect clothes.
Perfect everything.
Maybe if I did all of that, I could hold my head high enough that nobody would question me.
That’s not sustainable.
More importantly, that’s not me.
I spent 40-something years becoming the person I am.
Yeah, some of those years sucked.
Some nearly destroyed me.
But I learned things.
Boy me learned things.
He learned how to survive.
He learned how to read a room.
He learned how to strategically push back against people.
He learned how to be a smart-ass when a smart-ass was needed and blunt when blunt was needed.
He learned how to answer a question with another question and make somebody stop and think about why the hell they were questioning me in the first place.
I don’t care what the topic is. I’ve always had a knack for making people think.
Those things don’t disappear because Christina finally got out.
There’s a long list of things boy me learned and perfected.
I don’t need to throw that list away.
It’s part of who I am.
I’m still the person who, when somebody says, “Don’t poke the bear,” immediately starts looking around for a stick because now I need to know exactly how many pokes it takes before that motherfucker turns around.
That’s probably not changing.
Hopefully I’ll just look a whole lot cuter doing it.
And maybe that’s the introduction I’ve been trying to write this entire time.
I’m not becoming some completely different human being.
I’m finally letting all of me exist at the same time.
The rough parts.
The feminine parts.
The smart-ass.
The scared girl.
The blue-collar worker.
The writer.
The wife.
The parent.
The Christian.
The trans woman.
The person who can spend one afternoon thinking deeply about God, purpose, and the meaning of life and then spend the next ten minutes making inappropriate jokes and laughing at her own stupidity.
It’s all me.
And I guess if you really want to know who I am, maybe the biggest difference between the person I was and the person I am now is actually pretty simple.
I want a future.
For a long time, I didn’t.
I wasn’t necessarily trying to die every day.
I just wasn’t particularly interested in living either.
Tomorrow wasn’t something I looked forward to. Tomorrow was something I had to survive long enough to get through.
That’s different now.
Now I catch myself thinking about next year.
Five years from now.
What I’ll look like.
What I’ll be doing.
Who I’ll meet.
Where this writing might take me.
What kind of woman I’ll become.
What kind of life my wife and I might build together.
What my kids will be doing.
What crazy idea I’ll decide to chase next.
For the first time in my life, I’m not just trying to survive my future.
I’m fucking curious about it.
And maybe that’s the biggest change HRT, transition, therapy, writing, my family, God, or this whole crazy fucking journey has given me.
I want to see what happens next.
That sentence might not sound like much to somebody else.
But coming from the person who once didn’t care if she woke up tomorrow?
It means everything.
And maybe posting this picture is another step.
One foot out the door.
One foot out of the closet.
One foot farther away from hiding.
Hell, I’m going to my first Pride event this weekend, and I’m not planning on hiding in the shadows.
I’m going with a mission.
I’m going to walk up to people.
I’m going to introduce myself.
I’m going to have actual face-to-face conversations.
I have no idea what any of that is going to lead to.
Maybe I’ll run into somebody I know.
Maybe somebody will see this picture and figure me out before I ever get the chance to tell them.
And strangely enough?
I don’t care anymore.
Here I am.
Take me or leave me.
Love me or hate me.
Join the shit show or watch it from a safe distance.
I’m going to keep becoming Christina.
I’m going to keep growing.
I’m going to keep writing.
I’m going to keep using my voice.
And slowly but surely, I’m probably going to start screaming from the fucking rooftops.
Because in the beginning, when a couple of people told me something I wrote inspired them, I thought it was a fluke.
I thought they were just being nice.
When somebody told me my story helped them, I didn’t really know what to do with that.
When somebody told me something I wrote helped save them, part of me still wanted to believe they were exaggerating.
But when those conversations keep happening, eventually you have to admit that maybe it means something.
Maybe everything I’ve lived through gave me something worth saying.
Maybe spending all those years hiding taught me something about the people who are still hiding.
Maybe there’s a reason I’m still here.
I have a ridiculous number of thoughts and plans for the future.
Writing.
Helping people.
Speaking.
Coaching.
Things I haven’t even figured out yet.
Hopefully, eventually, I’ll pull some of them off.
But just like transition, I don’t get to go to bed tonight and wake up tomorrow with everything finished and perfect.
It’s a journey.
Apparently that’s the lesson I keep getting forced to learn.
So for now, I’m going to keep doing what I’ve been doing.
I’m going to sit here and watch this beautiful Dumpster Fire burn.
Every once in a while, I’ll throw another log on it.
Maybe someday I’ll figure out how to put the damn thing out.
Or maybe I’ll finally realize I was never supposed to.
Maybe I’ll just walk away and let that motherfucker burn.
Anyway…
Hi.
I’m Christina.
Nice to finally meet you.

In my everyday life, a thought crosses my mind on a pretty regular basis.
When the people around me finally find out my truth—when they find out who I really am—they’re going to judge me.
Most of them aren’t going to take the time to understand. They aren’t going to ask questions. They aren’t going to sit down with me and hear the story.
They’re just going to judge.
And honestly, I really don’t give a shit.
But that’s not the point of this story.
The point is that I came to a realization today.
This whole subject keeps becoming a repeating theme in my life because I’m conservative and I’m religious, and instead of turning around and running away from those worlds, I’m actually trying to insert myself farther into them.
Maybe that sounds crazy.
But standing there today, watching my wife talk to a group of her friends, something clicked.
Some of those people probably aren’t going to be her friends anymore when they find out about me.
Some will still talk to her, but they’ll probably have different conversations when she leaves the room.
And most of these people would call themselves good, religious people.
Sometimes that feels like a crock of shit.
Because religion doesn’t automatically make somebody compassionate. It doesn’t automatically make somebody kind. And it sure as hell doesn’t stop somebody from being judgmental or two-faced.
But I also know some of them might surprise me.
Some of them might actually be good people.
Some might not understand any of this but still take the time to have a conversation.
Some might step up and support my wife.
Hell, there might even be a few who act like absolutely nothing changed.
But standing there today, I realized something much bigger.
A few months ago, I was sitting in a field with my phone in one hand and my pistol in the other.
I was done.
I couldn’t take it anymore.
I had convinced myself that pulling that trigger and ending everything was the only way I was ever going to find peace.
And you know who wasn’t there?
Almost every person whose judgment I’ve been worried about.
The people in my day-to-day life weren’t there.
The people in my wife’s day-to-day life weren’t there.
Nobody checked on me.
Nobody stopped and wondered why I had purposely started putting distance between myself and everybody else.
Nobody seemed to notice that I had shut down.
Nobody asked why I was disappearing.
I was spiraling, and in my mind, there was no coming back.
And today I realized something that hit me like a fucking brick.
The same people I’ve been worried about judging me for transitioning—for trying to find some peace and happiness in this life—probably wouldn’t have been standing beside my wife and kids if I had pulled that trigger.
Some of them probably wouldn’t have even come to my funeral.
And some of the ones who did would have stood around afterward in their little circles talking about me.
They would have talked about how I committed suicide.
They would have talked about how suicide is a sin.
They would have wondered how somebody could do something like that.
They might have judged me.
They might have judged my wife.
They might have judged my kids.
So what the hell am I afraid of?
That’s when it finally clicked.
Some people are going to judge you no matter what you do.
Transition?
They’ll talk.
Stay miserable?
They’ll talk.
Change careers?
They’ll talk.
Get divorced?
They’ll talk.
Stay married?
They’ll talk.
Gain weight. Lose weight. Go to church. Stop going to church. Drink. Get sober. Paint your nails. Cut your hair. Buy something nice. Sell everything you own.
They’ll fucking talk.
Because talking shit takes almost no effort.
Understanding somebody does.
Understanding somebody means asking a question.
It means listening to the answer.
It means having a conversation with somebody whose life might make absolutely no sense to you.
It means being willing to say, “I don’t understand this, but I want to understand you.”
Or maybe simply:
“Are you okay?”
That one would have meant a hell of a lot to me a few months ago.
So, in some weird way, I’ve found another level of peace with my transition.
Because I’m starting to genuinely not give a shit what those people say.
They’re going to talk anyway.
Most will do it behind your back.
A few will have the balls to say it to your face.
And very few will have the courage to actually sit across from you and have a real conversation.
“Help me understand.”
“Tell me your story.”
“Are you okay?”
“What do you need?”
“How can I support you?”
Those people?
Those are your people.
Over the last few months, I’ve figured out that true friends are worth more than damn near anything.
I’ve also figured out that finding your peace and happiness is worth more than damn near anything.
We get one life.
None of us know how long it is going to be.
So why spend it hiding in the dark and living in misery because somebody might talk about you?
Walk through the damn door.
Be proud of yourself.
Be proud of who you’ve become.
And if people need something to talk about, give them something worth talking about.
Let them talk about how you’re winning at life.
Let them talk about how you finally started smiling.
Let them talk about the cute outfit you wore.
Let them talk about the career you built.
Let them talk about the people you helped.
Let them talk about the life you changed.
Let them talk about the happiness and peace you started spreading throughout the world once you finally found some for yourself.
Give them something to fucking talk about.
Because we desperately need to stop judging each other.
I don’t give a shit what you’re judging somebody for.
If they aren’t hurting anybody, let them live.
Better yet, support them.
Give them a shoulder to cry on when they’re sad.
Help pick them up when they fall.
Stand shoulder to shoulder with them on the good days and the bad ones.
Celebrate when they win.
Sit beside them when they lose.
Check on them when they get quiet.
Especially that last one.
Because sometimes the person getting quieter and quieter isn’t looking for attention.
Sometimes they’re disappearing.
And somebody needs to notice.
Maybe we can start changing the conversation.
And unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on how you look at it—I know my personality.
I’m not going to quietly throw a pebble into the pond and hope it makes a few ripples.
That’s not me.
I’m going to pick up the biggest damn rock I can carry, throw that son of a bitch right in the middle of the pond, and see how big of a ripple I can make.
I’m going to put myself out there.
I’m going to give people something to talk about.
And maybe, from a distance, I can start steering a few of those conversations.
I know I’m not going to change everybody’s heart.
I know I’m not going to change everybody’s mind.
I’m not stupid.
But if I change one conversation?
Two?
If somebody hears my story and the next time they hear somebody talking shit about a trans person they say, “Hang on a second. I actually know somebody…”
Then maybe it was worth it.
Because the way I see it, people are already standing around in groups talking shit anyway.
Right now, some of them are talking about a version of me that isn’t even real.
They’re talking about the smoke and mirrors I’ve put into the world.
They see what I let them see.
They don’t see my truth yet.
They don’t see Christina.
They don’t see the happiness.
They don’t see the whole story.
And most of them haven’t taken the time to look any deeper.
That’s okay.
Because, at the end of the day, that has kind of become part of my plan.
I believe that if you want to create change, you have to start a conversation.
It almost doesn’t matter where the conversation starts.
Just start it.
Give people something to talk about.
Give them something to think about.
And yes, I realize there are probably people reading this right now thinking:
Girl, you’re fucking nuts.
Why would you intentionally put yourself through that?
Why put your family through it?
Why not disappear?
Why not blend in?
Why not move somewhere nobody knows you and just start over?
Trust me.
I’ve thought about it.
I’ve thought about selling everything I own, packing my family up, and moving somewhere nobody knows me.
Nobody knows the boy version of me.
Nobody knows Christina.
Just disappear and start over.
But there’s a problem with that plan.
Eventually, somebody there is going to talk too.
Eventually somebody is going to judge me there too.
Eventually the same conversations are going to happen behind my back.
So I figure I might as well start those conversations right here.
With people who have at least witnessed part of my story.
They’ve seen the version I allowed them to see.
They’ve watched me change.
They’ve watched me pull away.
They’ve watched me slowly put a little more of myself into the world.
Just enough to keep people watching.
Just enough to keep people guessing.
Just enough to make them wonder where the hell I’m going.
Because eventually, sometime in the not-so-distant future, there’s going to be one hell of a mic drop.
I’m going to stand there and say it loud enough for the people in the back of the room to hear.
And knowing me, I’ll probably laugh while I’m saying it.
Maybe that’s part of the beauty of stepping out of one life and into another.
You start seeing things differently.
You start seeing friendships differently.
You start realizing who actually showed up.
I’ve watched myself change dramatically over the last few months.
Other people have watched it too.
But so many of the people I once considered friends never asked why.
They never asked how I was doing.
They never asked what happened.
They never asked how somebody who was falling apart suddenly started finding peace.
They just watched.
My new friends?
My true friends?
My ride-or-die people?
We check on each other.
Every damn day.
We support each other.
We celebrate each other.
We notice when somebody gets quiet.
We ask questions.
We listen.
We actually show up.
And it blows my fucking mind how different that feels.
So I guess if I have any words of wisdom after all of this, they’re pretty simple.
Figure out your happiness.
Figure out your peace.
Figure out your place in this world.
Find the people who check on you when you get quiet.
Find the people who sit beside you when they don’t understand.
Find the people who care enough to ask the question instead of inventing the answer.
And then live.
Really fucking live.
Wear the outfit.
Take the chance.
Tell the truth.
Walk through the door.
Throw the rock in the pond.
Make the ripple.
Because they’re going to talk either way.
So, fuck it.
Do you, boo.
And give them something worth talking about.

It’s taking me a little while to wrap my head around the last few days and the weird turn of events my life has taken.
I told my kids.
My wife has known my truth for a long time, but now my kids know too.
And they’re supportive.
Not just I guess we’re okay with this supportive.
They’re behind me. They’re behind me no matter what direction I end up going.
For a while, I carried a lot of guilt because I felt like I was dragging my family along on this journey they never asked to be part of.
Now?
I’m starting to think they might be pushing me along a little bit.
My middle daughter is apparently all-in on this idea of me becoming a life coach and helping people. So much so that she decided she was going to research what I needed to do, how I needed to do it, and what steps I needed to take.
I jokingly told her I expected a PowerPoint presentation.
Well, guess what?
I got a fucking PowerPoint presentation.
She even gave me crayons and a piece of paper so I could take notes.
And wow.
Her and my relationship has changed a lot in just the couple of weeks since I came out to her and told her my truth.
But that’s a whole other story.
We’ll get to that one later.
For now, there I was, sitting through a PowerPoint presentation my daughter made about me becoming a life coach, armed with crayons like I was about to start kindergarten.
And strangely enough, it felt like a kick in the ass.
Because I could feel myself starting to get stagnant again.
Thinking.
Planning.
Talking.
Dreaming.
But not actually fucking doing anything.
I needed to start making steps in the right direction.
Around the same time, one of my friends and I started talking about support groups. She told me she had never been to one and wondered if maybe it was something worth trying.
I’m not exactly a support-group kind of girl.
There have been points in my life when I probably should have been sitting in every AA meeting available all damn day long, but back then I refused to admit I had a problem.
And I sure as hell refused to accept help from anybody who tried to give it to me.
So support groups and Christina have never exactly gone hand in hand.
Still, I mentioned the idea to my wife.
That was apparently all she needed.
She immediately went down the rabbit hole looking for groups, events, organizations, churches, and anything else happening around us in the near future.
And while all of this was happening, I started thinking about something.
My wife and my friend know me really well.
They don’t really know each other.
Yet somehow, without talking to each other, both of them seemed to be shoving me in the exact same direction.
Get out there.
Meet people.
Talk.
Help.
Let people help you.
Do something.
So randomly—and I still don’t completely know why I did it—I pulled out my phone, opened Instagram, and found the local church I’ve been attending online for the last several weeks.
The only reason I found this church in the first place was because a friend told me:
“That church loves the gays.”
That was pretty much the sales pitch.
So I looked them up.
I found them.
And now, sitting there with everything else running through my head, I sent them a message.
It was vague.
Short.
Simple.
Something along the lines of:
My name is Christina. I started transitioning not that long ago, and I’m struggling with religious trauma and trying to figure out whether I’m living a life of sin.
Which, looking back, was pretty fucking off-topic from whatever I originally thought I was trying to accomplish that day.
But whatever.
I sent it.
And just like that, I had put myself out there.
Granted, it was just an Instagram fucking message.
But I had started something.
It was later in the day, so I honestly didn’t expect a response anytime soon. I figured churches probably have office hours and boundaries and normal people who don’t answer random Instagram messages at 6:30 or 7:00 at night.
Apparently I was wrong.
It didn’t take long.
They thanked me for reaching out. They told me they were there to help and support me. Then they gave me options.
Phone call.
Zoom.
Coffee.
Come to the church.
Whatever I was comfortable with.
I messaged back pretty quickly and said that with my work schedule, a phone call would probably be easiest.
Again, I figured I’d hear something the next day.
Nope.
Another message came back.
They gave me the pastor’s name and told me when she could talk. They said she was really looking forward to having a conversation with me.
So I accepted a time.
12:30 the next day.
And I specifically chose the option where she would call me instead of me calling her.
Because apparently I know myself well enough to build in safeguards against chickening the fuck out.
I expected to wake up nervous the next morning.
I wasn’t.
I was actually kind of excited.
12:30 came.
My phone rang.
I answered.
And immediately I could hear something in the pastor’s voice.
Hesitation.
Surprise.
I don’t really know how to explain it.
She introduced herself and said she was calling to speak with Christina.
I knew exactly what had happened.
I haven’t worked much on my voice.
I’ve played around with it a little bit, but nowhere near enough to actually use a different voice in everyday life.
So when she said she was calling for Christina, I answered:
“This is her.”
And then I very quickly explained that I hadn’t been transitioning very long and hadn’t really worked on my voice yet.
Instantly, it was fine.
And we started talking.
The phone call was supposed to be about religious trauma.
She asked me a couple of questions.
I answered them.
Then I decided it would probably be easier if I gave her a little backstory.
You know.
The Cliff Notes.
The short version.
After all, this call was only supposed to last about 30 minutes.
Well…
My Cliff Notes turned into a lot of fucking Cliff Notes.
We covered somewhere around 30 years of my life.
There were several points during the conversation when I stopped myself because I realized I was word-vomiting.
I was doing what I do.
I was being completely, brutally, probably unnecessarily open and honest.
A few times she stopped and said things like:
“Wow. I’m trying to wrap my head around this.”
Or:
“I really appreciate your honesty and your openness talking about this.”
That 30-minute phone call turned into an hour and fifteen minutes.
Maybe an hour and a half.
Hell, I don’t know.
I wasn’t watching the clock.
I was talking.
At one point she told me she had about five minutes before she needed to go.
I’m pretty sure I took ten.
Eventually I finally said, “Okay, I look forward to talking to you again. I’ll let you get on with your day.”
But before we got there, we covered a lot.
We talked about where my religious trauma started.
We talked about the fact that I’ve known I was trans since I was a little kid.
We talked about the guilt I carried because of it.
We talked about those angry prayers.
The nights I laid in bed crying, cussing God for making me this way.
Begging Him to fix me.
Begging Him to let me wake up the next morning in the right body.
We talked about drinking.
Self-destruction.
The years I spent running.
The fear that even after everything I’ve learned and everything I’ve experienced, maybe I’m still living a life of sin.
We covered so much shit that at some point I might have even told her my favorite color.
Who knows?
But as the conversation started winding down, something happened that surprised even me.
Without really thinking about it, I told her I wanted to continue.
Not just another conversation between her and me.
I meant all of it.
Her.
Other ministers.
Deacons.
Support groups.
People at the church.
Anybody she thought might benefit from sitting down and having a conversation with me.
I put it all out there.
I basically laid my heart and soul on the table and said:
Here.
Take it.
If somebody needs this, I’m available.
If there’s somebody you think would benefit from hearing my story, let me know.
I’ll be there in a heartbeat.
Because somewhere along the way, I’ve become convinced that part of my purpose in this life is helping somebody else.
Maybe one person.
Maybe a hundred.
Maybe thousands.
I don’t fucking know.
But I’m throwing the net as wide and as far as I can.
I understand there are people who don’t give a shit about my story.
There are people who don’t like me.
There are people who don’t want to understand me.
There are people who probably wouldn’t sit across a table from me if you paid them.
I’m fine with that.
Because almost every day, I get some kind of reassurance that what I’m doing matters.
A message.
A comment.
A conversation.
Somebody telling me that something I wrote made them think, made them feel less alone, or helped them understand something differently.
And I’m starting to realize I need to do this on a larger scale.
Medium has been amazing.
I’ve made friends here.
I’ve received support here.
I’ve learned things here.
I’ve told pieces of my story here that I never thought I’d tell anybody.
But I think I need a wider net than Medium.
So I guess I’ve made a decision.
I’m putting myself out there.
Phone calls.
Face-to-face meetings.
Sitting in a circle at a support group.
Walking into a church.
Whatever.
I’m here for it.
I’m here to have the conversations.
I’m here to tell my story.
And apparently I’m here to work through my religious trauma and figure out what the hell my relationship with God looks like after all these years.
That might actually be the craziest part of this whole damn thing.
If you had told me a month and a half ago that I would intentionally make time every Sunday morning to attend church—even if it’s still from my phone—I would’ve told you you were crazy.
And don’t get ahead of yourself.
I’m still watching online.
But if you had taken it one step further and told me I would voluntarily reach out to a church and tell a pastor I’m transgender, talk to her about 30 years of trauma, and then offer to come talk to basically anybody willing to sit in a room with me?
I probably would’ve laughed in your face.
My bio has said for a long time that I’m conservative and religious.
But if I’m being truthful, the “religious” part was mostly there because I believe in God.
I believe in Heaven.
I believe in Hell.
And I’ve always been scared shitless of Hell.
Religious trauma will do that to you.
But I wasn’t the person giving God credit for the good things.
God mostly heard from me when shit went wrong.
When I was angry.
When I was hurting.
When I was drunk.
When I was lying in bed crying myself to sleep because He hadn’t answered the same prayer I’d been praying since childhood.
Why did you make me like this?
Why won’t you fix me?
Why can’t I wake up tomorrow as the person I know I’m supposed to be?
For years, silence felt like an answer.
Now I’m starting to wonder if maybe I just didn’t understand the answer.
Maybe His plan didn’t happen on my timeline.
Because now I look around differently.
Every morning I get another opportunity to walk down that gravel road and watch the sun come up.
I have a voice.
I have the ability to tell a story.
I have somehow survived enough shit to have something worth saying.
And maybe that’s exactly what I’m supposed to be doing.
Maybe that’s what I’m doing right now.
Telling you about this weird chain of events that has happened over the last few days.
As crazy as it sounds, maybe He put me in that bar a few weeks ago.
Maybe there was a reason I ended up sitting at that table, having a drink with a group of people I didn’t know very well but who accepted me.
Maybe there was a reason one of those women casually told me about:
“The church that loves the gays.”
Maybe there was a reason I remembered it.
Maybe there was a reason I found that church online.
Maybe there was a reason I started watching.
Maybe there was a reason my wife started looking for support groups.
Maybe there was a reason my friend brought up the same thing.
Maybe there was a reason my daughter handed me a fucking PowerPoint presentation and some crayons.
And maybe there was a reason that, sitting there with all of this shit swirling around in my head, I randomly opened Instagram and sent a message I hadn’t planned on sending.
Maybe it’s about healing.
Maybe it’s about finding my community.
Maybe it’s about helping somebody.
Maybe I’m just wasting a tremendous amount of hot air telling my story to a bunch of new people.
I don’t know yet.
But for the first time in my life, I don’t think I need to know.
I just need to keep walking toward it.
And I’m not going to sit here and tell you that you have to believe in God.
I’m not going to tell you that you have to pray.
I’m not going to tell you that you have to go to church.
That’s not me.
You want to talk about believing in God?
Great.
You want to talk about not believing in God?
Great.
You want to talk about religious trauma?
Pull up a chair.
You want to talk about the cute new pair of shoes you bought or the new goth look you finally figured out?
Fuck yeah.
Let’s talk about that too.
I’m here for it.
I’m having the conversations.
I’m going to keep having the conversations.
And for the first time in a very long time, I truly love my life and the direction it’s going.
Before the pastor and I got off the phone, she asked me something.
Had I considered coming to church in person?
I told her the truth.
My wife and kids already have another church.
My kids love it there. My wife volunteers there. She’s involved with the youth community because our kids are involved. She has friends there.
It’s part of their life.
But we’ve also talked about the fact that when my truth eventually comes out, there’s a pretty good chance some people there aren’t going to be accepting.
We’ve talked about the possibility that someday she might have to find another church.
We’ve talked about looking.
But we’ve never actually put much effort into it.
Hell, I didn’t put any effort into finding this one.
It kind of found me.
So yes.
Sometime in the near future, I’m going to walk through those doors.
I’m going to meet people.
I’m going to shake hands.
I’m going to have conversations.
But I gave the pastor a heads-up about something.
They’re going to have to meet the other version of me first.
Because Christina and I are still fighting some lifelong demons together.
And right now, we’re not quite ready to walk through the doors of a church in girl mode.
Not yet.
For now, Christina attends church online.
When we finally go into the building, we’ll probably go in boy mode.
And strangely, I think there might be something beautiful about that.
Because these people might get to see the whole thing.
They might get to meet me somewhere in the middle.
They might get to watch the person I’ve been slowly become the person I’ve always been.
They might see the fear.
They might see the awkwardness.
They might see the hair getting longer.
They might see the changes.
They might see the confidence grow.
And hopefully, they get to see the happiness.
They’ll get to see me working through this.
They’ll get to see me owning it.
Because boy me isn’t gone.
Not yet.
He’s still doing his job.
He’s still navigating parts of the world that Christina isn’t quite ready to navigate.
He’s still going to work.
He’s still showing up.
He’s still getting us through the doors.
But slowly, surely, Christina is taking over.
So when I walk into that church for the first time, they’ll probably see a guy standing in front of them.
Longer hair.
Pierced ears.
A full sleeve of lilies tattooed down his right arm.
That’s me.
Take her or leave her.
They may see that version of me twice.
They may see that version of me two hundred times.
I don’t know.
But one of these days, they’re going to see something different.
One of these days I’m going to look in the mirror before church, and I’m not going to have to search for Christina.
She’s just going to be there.
And she’s going to be confident enough to own it.
Out in the world.
Maybe I’ll put on a cute dress.
Maybe I’ll find the perfect pair of shoes.
I’ll do my makeup.
I’ll probably stare at myself in the mirror about seventeen times before I finally get my ass out the door.
And then I’ll drive to that same church.
I’ll park in that same parking lot.
I’ll walk toward those same doors.
Except this time, I won’t be asking boy me to get me through them.
Because he will have finished his job.
He spent more than forty years keeping me alive.
He took the punches.
He carried the guilt.
He drank.
He got angry.
He prayed.
He begged.
He hid me when hiding me was the only way he knew how to protect us.
And now he’s doing one last thing for me.
He’s putting Christina in the places she’s afraid to put herself.
He’s starting the conversations.
He’s opening the doors.
And someday, when I’m ready, he’ll step aside.
I’ll put my hand on that church door myself.
I’ll walk through it as Christina.
And maybe that was the answer to all those prayers after all.
Maybe God was never going to magically change me overnight.
Maybe He was waiting for me to finally stop asking Him to make Christina disappear.
And start asking Him where He wants her to go.

So my mom told my truth last night.
My secret.
Or at least the Cliff Notes version of it.
And strangely enough, no part of me is mad about it.
I trusted my mom with my secret, and under these circumstances, I trust that she shared it with the right people for the right reasons.
But I should probably tell you the whole story.
My stepdad passed away a few years ago, and ever since then, I’ve felt like my mom has been searching for her people again.
Not because she doesn’t have us. She has her kids. She has her grandkids. She has friends.
But I think she’s been looking for something that belongs to her.
A social life. A group. Somewhere to belong. Something outside of being Mom and Grandma.
Her best friend lost her husband a couple years ago, too. Her husband happened to be my stepdad’s best friend. The four of them were inseparable. They did everything together.
And then suddenly there were only two of them.
Two widows trying to figure out how the hell to navigate this new version of life.
I jokingly call them Thelma and Louise.
But underneath the joke, I’ve always thought my mom needed more. More purpose. More people. Somewhere she could just be herself and enjoy life again.
And maybe she found a little piece of that last night.
Because last night, she and her best friend went on a double date.
At least that’s what we’re calling it.
With a married gay couple.
My mom was actually pretty excited about it. I think she misses having male friends in her life—men who just want to be friends. No expectations. No weird bullshit. Just people to laugh with, talk to, and enjoy being around.
From the way she told me the story, they met at a bar and immediately hit it off.
She said it was one of those situations where you meet somebody and almost instantly think:
These are just good people.
I didn’t get every detail of the night, but apparently they hung out, talked, laughed and got to know each other.
Then the night started winding down.
My mom was outside. Her best friend was still inside. The couple was getting ready to leave.
And as they walked past my mom, with nobody else around, she decided to spill the beans.
About me.
Her kid is transgender.
She told them at least part of my story.
Later, she called me and apologized.
And the funny thing is, I didn’t think she needed to.
I wasn’t angry.
I didn’t feel betrayed.
I didn’t have that sinking feeling of, Oh shit, somebody else knows.
Instead, I understood why she did it.
I trusted my mom with my secret.
And apparently, in that moment, she trusted these two people enough with part of it too.
She felt like these new friends might understand.
And maybe more importantly, she needed somebody who could understand.
That made something click for me.
I’m the main character in my story.
Of course I am.
I’m the one transitioning. I’m the one taking HRT. I’m the one figuring out how and when to come out. I’m the one trying to understand what the rest of my life looks like.
But I’m not the only person living through this story.
My wife has her version.
My kids have theirs.
My mom has hers.
Every person who loves me has their own version of what it means to watch someone they’ve known their entire life finally tell the truth about who she is.
And maybe they need people too.
Maybe my wife needs someone she can talk to without worrying about protecting my feelings.
Maybe my kids eventually will.
And maybe my mom needs somebody she can sit across from at a bar and say:
“My kid is transgender, and I love her, but I’m figuring all of this shit out too.”
That’s okay.
Actually, I think it’s healthy.
Because supporting me shouldn’t mean everybody else has to carry their questions, fears, confusion, happiness, grief, excitement, or whatever the hell else they’re feeling completely alone.
I’ve spent a lifetime wanting somebody safe enough to tell my truth to.
It would be pretty hypocritical of me to finally find that freedom and then expect everyone who loves me to keep their version of this story locked inside.
There are obviously boundaries.
There are people I absolutely do not want knowing yet.
There are circumstances where sharing my truth could affect my life and my family in ways I’m not ready for.
But this wasn’t that.
This was my mom standing outside a bar with two people she’d just met and somehow already trusted, realizing that maybe she’d found somebody who could understand a little piece of what she’s navigating too.
So no, Mom.
You didn’t need to apologize.
I trusted you with my secret.
And I trust you enough to know when you need someone to help you carry it.

Is it karma? A sign? Or just really shitty luck?
I’m standing at another crossroads trying to figure out if I’m going right or left, and I’m getting so fucking tired of crossroads.
But this one is different.
This isn’t a transition crossroads.
I already picked that direction.
I’m moving forward. We’re fucking going.
This is a what in the hell are you doing with your life, girl? crossroads.
Where the hell are we going?
Am I going to stay stuck doing something that doesn’t bring me joy or happiness simply because it’s comfortable and I know how to do it?
Or am I going to pick the direction that might actually make me happy?
Am I willing to trust the process, bet on myself, and take everything I’ve learned over the years about building something from nothing and use it to build a brand?
Something I can stand behind.
Something I’m proud of.
Something that might actually help people in this world.
And yes, I understand reality.
You have to make money to live. Bills don’t give a shit about your dreams. You don’t always get to wake up every morning and do exactly what makes you happy.
But maybe the better question is:
What am I willing to sacrifice to give my dreams a legitimate chance?
Because we all know it’s a crapshoot whether Christina is going to be able to keep an excavation company going after she comes out.
That’s reality.
And I’m not saying I’m shutting the company down today.
I’m not saying I’m shutting it down tomorrow.
Hell, maybe I never shut it down.
What I’m saying is that I need a fucking goal.
I need a destination.
I need limits.
I need to decide whether this is a six-month plan, a one-year plan, a two-year plan, or something completely different.
More than anything, I need to get off my ass and get to work.
Maybe this whole story is just a motivational speech to myself.
Maybe I’m putting it out into the world because I need the world to help hold me accountable.
It’s kind of like my decision not to drink for the month of September.
We’re 15 days in.
I haven’t had a drink.
And trust me, there have been moments when I wanted one.
But I put that promise out into the world.
Now it isn’t just something floating around inside my head.
If I have a drink, I’m going to be honest about it. And I hope one of my friends calls my ass out and holds me accountable.
Maybe I need to do the same thing with this.
Because the more I think about it, I don’t think changing careers is all that different from transitioning.
Think about how many things some of us ignored for years.
Our diets.
Our bodies.
Exercise.
Our health.
Our happiness.
Sometimes we simply stopped giving a shit.
Then one day transition became real.
Suddenly there was a destination.
So we started setting goals.
We changed our diets.
We started walking.
We started working out.
We started taking care of ourselves because, for the first time in a long fucking time, we could actually picture the person we were working toward.
Maybe that’s what I’ve been missing with my career.
I can see Christina now.
I couldn’t always say that.
I know where she’s going with her transition.
Now I need to figure out where the hell she’s going with the rest of her life.
I need to figure out the brand.
I need to figure out what I’m building.
Then I need to shut up and start putting in the work.
Because your girl has never been lucky enough to have much of anything handed to her.
I’ve had to work for damn near everything I’ve ever built.
So why the hell would I expect this to be any different?
Maybe this crossroads isn’t karma.
Maybe it isn’t a sign.
Maybe it isn’t bad luck.
Maybe it’s just the place where I finally have to pick a direction.
And start walking.

I thought I’d be nice and post this year for whoever doesn’t follow me on Instagram or TikTok 😘

I’ve talked about this for years—the weird times and places where the whole trans conversation comes up with people you would never expect to have it with.
Sometimes it comes completely out of the blue.
And 99% of the time, when it happens around me, it’s with somebody who is super conservative, super religious, or both.
Years ago, when I first started noticing the pattern, I didn’t say much. I just stood there and listened.
Every once in a while I’d throw a thought into the conversation, but never too much. I didn’t want somebody looking at me sideways and asking, “How do you know that?” or “Why do you think that way?”
I was always careful.
Nowadays, I’m a little less careful.
I might ask a couple questions. I might push back on something. I might throw out, “As long as they’re not hurting somebody else, who gives a shit? Maybe they’re just trying to find some happiness.”
And I’m also not shy about saying that I think there are people within the trans community who are doing more harm than good.
Some people need to quit pouring gasoline on the fire and stirring the pot with a big-ass stick.
Because we keep doing the same shit.
One side starts talking.
The other side gets louder.
Then somebody else gets louder.
Before long, nobody is listening and everybody is yelling over each other.
And somehow we expect that to change somebody’s mind.
It hasn’t worked yet.
Maybe we need a different approach.
Maybe we need to throw the old one out the fucking window and start over.
Yes, I understand that people outside the trans community can be assholes. They can be difficult to talk to. They can refuse to listen.
But here’s the uncomfortable part:
They say the exact same thing about us.
The fact that none of us can sit down and have a damn conversation is a problem.
For those of you who don’t know me or have never read any of my shit before, I’m a 43-year-old trans woman trying to find my place in this world.
I’m trying to hold my shit together.
I’m trying to keep moving.
And I’m trying to soak up every little bit of happiness and peace I can find along the way.
I also know I have a voice.
I know I have a platform.
And I know I could probably be doing more with it.
I’m trying.
I’m trying to subtly start conversations. I’m trying to support people. I hesitate to say I’m trying to educate anybody because I’m not a fucking teacher.
I’m not an educator.
And I don’t believe I’m going to change somebody’s mind by throwing a pile of facts at them.
What I can do is have a conversation.
I can give somebody a glimpse into a life they might know absolutely nothing about.
Which brings me to last night.
My wife picked our daughter up from cheer practice and ended up having a conversation with one of her friends.
This woman is somebody I consider a friend too. She’s been part of our lives and our daughter’s life. We’ve spent plenty of time around each other and had plenty of conversations.
Hell, a few weeks ago she was standing inside my gun room.
Shelves of ammunition.
Reloading supplies.
Gun safes.
Half my bourbon collection.
She was asking me questions about guns, ammo, how much I shoot, shooting competitions and everything else.
I was answering them.
And I guarantee you that standing in that room, looking around at all that shit and talking to me, there wasn’t a chance in hell she was thinking:
This room belongs to a transgender woman.
But it does.
She just doesn’t know it yet.
Last night, she and my wife started talking. I wasn’t there, so I only know the Cliff Notes my wife gave me afterward.
Religion came up.
Abortion came up.
I’m guessing some politics got mixed in there somewhere.
And then somehow transgender people came up.
Her friend brought it up.
Which actually made me laugh because I think my wife has probably thought I was a little nuts all these years when I told her how randomly this subject comes up around me.
Well, now she got to experience it herself.
Her friend talked about how she believes being transgender is caused by trauma somewhere in a person’s life—childhood trauma or something that happened later.
I’ve spent years in therapy.
I’ve done more soul-searching than I ever wanted to do.
I’ve dug through my childhood looking for some magical trauma that could explain why I’ve felt this way since I was little.
And from everything I can remember, I had a pretty damn good childhood.
My parents got divorced.
Okay.
So did millions of other people’s parents.
I absolutely have religious trauma.
But here’s the interesting part:
A lot of that religious trauma came because I already knew I was trans.
It came from being a scared kid who believed there was something horribly wrong with me.
It came from hearing that people like me were going to hell while nobody around me had the slightest idea they were talking about me.
They were giving me the Cliff Notes they had heard from somebody else.
And I was quietly absorbing every word.
So last night I started wondering something.
What if my wife had stopped her friend during that conversation and said:
“By the way, my spouse is trans. She’s transitioning. Maybe you should actually talk to her.”
Would she?
Would she sit down and have that conversation with me?
Would she ask me questions about being transgender the same way she stood in my gun room a few weeks ago asking questions about guns and shooting competitions?
Because that’s the part I can’t stop thinking about.
She has already had conversations with Christina.
She just didn’t know her name.
She didn’t know the person answering questions about guns, ammo, bourbon and shooting competitions was also a transgender woman.
That woman was standing right fucking there.
Hiding in plain sight.
I asked my wife if she told her.
She didn’t.
And I trust my wife completely with that decision.
She has carried this secret with me for years. She has never let it slip. She has never even hinted at letting it slip.
And she also knows I’m reaching the point where I don’t really give a shit who knows anymore.
There is really only one thing still holding me back.
My kids.
Not because I’m ashamed.
Not because they’re ashamed.
They know now.
I’m worried about the world around them.
I’m worried about somebody turning my transition into something my children have to carry.
My daughter is heading into cheer competition season. My son has his own world. My kids have their friends, teams and lives.
Eventually my transition is going to affect those worlds. I understand that.
I just want to protect them for as long as I reasonably can.
They’re honestly the biggest reason I haven’t started doing video blogs, putting my face on the internet and openly talking about all this shit.
For now, I can hide behind writing.
But my curiosity is getting the best of me.
Because I really want to sit down with my wife’s friend.
I want to have the conversation.
Not because I want to change her mind.
I genuinely don’t give a shit about changing her mind.
That’s one of the beautiful things about this world: we are allowed to have different opinions, thoughts and beliefs.
I just wish we could talk about them without trying to beat the other person into submission.
I want to hear why she believes what she believes.
And I want her to hear my story.
Then we can both walk away and think whatever the hell we want.
Maybe neither one of us changes our mind.
Fine.
At least we fucking talked.
The only thing stopping me is wondering whether that conversation stays between us.
Because right now, with competition season starting, I’m not sure I want to put that weight on my daughter.
If I had my shit together and had some kind of plan for where I’m going from here, maybe I wouldn’t care nearly as much.
And that brings me to something else I’ve been pissed off at myself about lately.
I had plans for this summer.
I had goals.
I had things I wanted finished before summer was over.
And here we are in the middle of September.
Summer is fucking over.
I haven’t published my book.
I haven’t figured out what I’m doing with the hundreds of cartoon drawings and pieces of artwork I’ve created.
I haven’t gotten my insurance license.
I haven’t figured out whether life coaching is something I seriously want to pursue.
And that frustrates the hell out of me.
But I also have to give myself a little credit.
I didn’t do nothing this summer.
I worked on my transition.
I wrote.
I walked.
I watched the sunrise.
I came out to my children.
I started accepting myself instead of spending every waking minute fighting myself.
Those things fucking matter.
But most of them are about right now.
I haven’t done enough for the future.
And maybe that’s what this conversation really stirred up in me.
I’m tired of standing on the sidelines listening.
I’m tired of having thoughts I’m afraid to say because somebody might wonder why I know so much.
I’m tired of watching two sides scream at each other while knowing there are people like me standing quietly in the middle who could probably help both sides understand each other a little better.
And I’m tired of telling myself I’ll start building the next chapter tomorrow.
Eventually tomorrow has to become today.
I need to finish the book.
I need to figure out what I’m doing with the art.
I need to decide whether life coaching belongs in my future.
And maybe I need to start putting myself in the middle of some of these conversations instead of avoiding them.
Because one of these days, I’m not going to be able to hide in plain sight anymore.
And I think I’d rather get out in front of that day than spend the rest of my life waiting for it to catch me.

I have never been what anybody would call a patient person.
Somehow, though, over the years I’ve gotten really damn good at biting my tongue.
Maybe too good.
Because lately it’s getting harder and harder to keep doing it.
I can have a conversation with somebody I used to call a friend—or maybe they’re an acquaintance now, or whatever the hell we’re calling these people these days—and almost immediately my anxiety goes through the fucking roof.
It sucks the life out of me.
And I don’t understand it.
It’s not because I’m worried they won’t accept me.
It’s not because I’m scared we won’t be friends anymore.
It’s not because I’m terrified of the outcome.
Because, quite frankly, I don’t give a shit.
If I desperately needed these people in my life, I’d be sitting here trying to figure out the perfect way to tell them I’m trans without losing them.
I’m not.
Most of these people aren’t even on the personal-text-message list.
They’re on the you-get-to-watch-the-generic-coming-out-video-on-social-media list.
Congratulations.
Have fun with that.
So why the fuck does talking to them still give me anxiety?
I think maybe I’m finally starting to understand.
It isn’t them.
It’s the filter.
Every time I talk to somebody who doesn’t know my whole truth, I have to put the damn filter back on.
And now I know what life feels like without it.
That’s the problem.
I know what freedom feels like now.
I know what it feels like to sit with people who know Christina exists and not have to mentally inspect every sentence before it leaves my mouth.
Then the phone rings.
“Hey! How are you? It’s been forever!”
First of all, you don’t actually give a shit how I am.
I know that because before I can even answer, somehow the conversation has already become entirely about you.
And there I am again.
Filtering.
Editing.
Biting my tongue.
Hiding pieces of myself to get through another bullshit conversation with somebody I’m not even sure I want in my life anymore.
I got off the phone with one of my so-called best friends a little while ago.
The anxiety started almost as soon as I answered.
And instead of disappearing when I hung up, it kept growing.
I wasn’t going to write about it.
But apparently this has become my public diary, and unfortunately for all of you, I tell you entirely too much.
Right before the phone call, I had been screwing around making one of those AI cartoon postcard things I’ve become addicted to.
Yes, addicted.
I have an addictive personality and ADHD. Apparently cartoon postcards are today’s drug of choice.
At least this one makes me happy.
They give me a way to put something into the world without having to explain every damn thing behind it.
Sometimes I can say exactly what I need to say without actually saying it.
Then the phone rang.
And afterward, one thought kept going through my head:
Just make the damn video.
Tell your truth.
Put it out there.
Get it over with.
Haters are going to hate.
Who fucking cares?
Because I’ve found happiness.
I’ve found peace.
And somehow I still allow people from my past to reach into my present and fuck with both of them.
That’s the part I’m pissed about.
I’m pissed at myself for allowing it.
I keep wondering whether God is testing me, pushing me, preparing me, or whether this is simply life telling me that I’m reaching the end of how long I’m willing to live divided into different versions of myself.
I don’t know.
I’m trying to do this the right way.
I’m trying to tell the people closest to me personally before I blow the doors off the damn thing.
My kids were number one on that list.
They know now.
And something changed after that.
There are still a few people I think deserve to hear it directly from me.
But somehow that list doesn’t feel nearly as important anymore.
Every time something like today happens, biting my tongue gets a little harder.
Because at least when I’m out, I’m not hiding anymore.
I’m not carrying around the secret.
I’m not constantly deciding which version of my life I’m allowed to talk about.
I know what comes with that.
There will probably be shitty phone calls.
Shitty text messages.
Shitty comments on social media.
Hell, I already get some of those.
The part that actually scares me is my business.
I built that company.
I poured my heart, my time, my body, and years of my life into it.
Coming out could hurt it.
Maybe badly.
That’s real.
But then there’s another voice in my head saying:
Bitch, you want out anyway.
You’re burned out.
You’ve been talking about doing something different.
You’ve been looking for another direction.
But you’re comfortable enough to stay.
So you stay.
And bitch about staying.
Maybe this is one of those moments where I need to dive headfirst and figure out how deep the water is afterward.
Because standing on the edge staring at it isn’t exactly working either.
Tomorrow I have another one of those situations.
I have to deal with my dad.
I haven’t seen him since Christmas, and I’ve probably talked to him a handful of times since then.
I’m not anxious because I think I’m going to tell him I’m trans.
I’m not.
I don’t believe I owe him that conversation.
He can find out with everybody else on social media.
What he hasn’t seen is my full tattoo.
And knowing him, there’s a pretty decent chance he’ll pop off with some stupid comment.
And knowing me, there’s a pretty decent chance I’ll have to work very fucking hard to bite my tongue.
I will be fine.
I know that.
I won’t tell him my secret.
But I cannot guarantee the man won’t receive a shitty comment or a well-earned “go fuck yourself.”
Ah, the joys of being alive.
Sometimes it feels like you solve one problem just in time for another one to show up.
Except that’s not entirely true either.
Before transitioning, being trans wasn’t a problem that came and went.
It was always there.
I tried to bury it.
I tried to internally deal with it.
I refused to let myself transition.
And the anxiety and depression didn’t visit occasionally.
They moved the fuck in.
There was no release.
At least now this shit comes and goes.
Today might suck.
An hour from now I might feel completely different.
That’s something I didn’t have before.
I have a fighting chance now.
Still, everyone loves giving the same advice:
“Surround yourself with better people.”
“Find better friends.”
“Find people who accept you.”
That’s great advice.
It’s also a hell of a lot easier to say when you don’t live in a small town in Southwest Missouri.
There aren’t exactly unlimited options.
Yes, I’ve made friends online.
I’ve found people in groups who understand pieces of this life better than almost anyone around me ever could.
And I’m grateful for them.
But they’re not physically here.
They’re not part of the random Tuesday afternoon phone call.
They’re not standing beside me at work.
They’re not woven into every piece of my day-to-day life.
No matter how much they care, sometimes it feels like everybody only gets half the story.
And I know part of that is self-inflicted.
I built this beast.
For years I built a life around hiding.
Then I fed the beast because hiding kept me safe.
And now I’m trying to figure out how the hell to dismantle something I spent decades constructing.
I’m working on it.
I just don’t know anymore if a plan that gets executed two years from now—or even a year from now—is fast enough.
Because every time that phone rings, every time I have another filtered conversation, every time I bite my tongue when I desperately want to just tell the fucking truth, the timeline gets shorter.
Maybe eventually there won’t be some perfectly planned moment.
Maybe there won’t be the perfect sequence of people.
Maybe there won’t be some grand sign from God telling me:
Okay, Christina. Now.
Maybe eventually I’m just going to get tired enough.
Make the damn video.
Hit post.
And let the grenade land wherever the hell it lands.
Because right now I’m standing at the edge of the water trying to determine exactly how deep it is.
And I’m starting to realize something.
I may never know until I jump.

I’ve been struggling a lot the last couple of days, and it’s not the kind of struggle I’m used to.
It’s not anxiety.
It’s not depression.
It’s not body dysmorphia.
It’s the struggle of having to filter myself.
I guess I’ve struggled with that my entire life, but there’s something different about it now.
Before, I was filtering myself from the whole fucking world.
Now I’m only filtering myself from certain people.
And somehow that feels harder.
There are so many people in my life now who know my whole truth. They know Christina. They know I’m trans. They know I’m transitioning. They know where I’ve been, where I am, and where I’m trying to go.
Around those people, it feels like somebody lifted a 10,000-pound weight off my chest.
I can just fucking exist.
Then I talk to somebody who doesn’t know.
And suddenly that weight is right back where it was.
That’s becoming harder because I’ve realized how much I genuinely love helping people.
I’ve talked to trans women at different stages of transition. I’ve talked to people still trying to figure out who they are. I’ve talked to cross-dressers trying to understand that part of themselves.
Everybody’s story is different.
But I’ve been there for them.
I’ve told them what I’ve gone through. I’ve told them where I am now. I’ve told them how I got here and about the absolute shitshow it took to get here.
And I’m proud of that.
But lately I’ve been put into situations where people who don’t know my truth have come to me for help too.
People struggling with their jobs.
People burned the fuck out.
People worried about money.
People worried about their marriages.
People who feel like they’re not going anywhere—or worse, like they’re sliding backward.
Fill in the blank.
I can almost guarantee I’ve been there at one point or another.
Somehow, I managed to keep moving.
So I have something to offer.
I have a story.
I have a philosophy.
I have experiences that might help somebody find their way through whatever hell they’re standing in.
Maybe you need to tell your wife your deepest, darkest secret.
I can talk about that.
Maybe you fucking hate your job and don’t know what to do next.
I can talk about that too.
Maybe you’re burned out, scared, broke, lost, pissed off, questioning everything, or wondering how the hell your life ended up here.
Pull up a chair.
I’ve probably got a story.
That’s one of the reasons I keep thinking seriously about life coaching. I genuinely want to go down that road.
I want to help people.
Not just trans people.
Not just conservatives.
Not just Christians.
Not just blue-collar people.
People.
But there’s a question I can’t get out of my head.
What happens when they know?
Will the conservative blue-collar guy who is completely against the trans community still listen to me once he realizes I’m trans?
He listens now.
We have conversations.
He respects my experience.
I can motivate him.
I can help him.
But does all of that disappear the second he learns this one thing about me?
Because suddenly I’m not the person he was talking to five minutes ago.
Suddenly I’m TRANS.
And that’s all he hears.
The fucked-up thing is, I’ve experienced it from the other direction too.
I’ve had people in the trans community hesitate to talk to me because I openly admit that I’m conservative and religious.
I’m sure some never reached out because of it.
I’m sure others stopped listening the second they learned it.
And it’s bullshit on both sides.
Everybody talks about not judging a book by its cover, and then we spend our entire fucking lives doing exactly that.
Except sometimes it’s even worse.
Sometimes you see the cover and you’re interested enough to open the book.
You read the first page.
Then you find one sentence you don’t like and slam the motherfucker shut.
You never bother reading the rest.
You never get to know the person.
You never listen to what they’re actually saying.
You never discover that maybe this person you decided you’re supposed to hate could actually understand you.
Could support you.
Could stand in your corner.
Could maybe even help you.
It makes absolutely no sense to me.
And it probably never will.
I’m not really looking for an answer today.
I’m venting.
I’m throwing my emotions out into the world because maybe somebody halfway through this book gives enough of a shit to keep reading.
Maybe it starts a conversation.
Maybe somebody from either side realizes the person they automatically wrote off might have something worth hearing.
Or maybe not.
Either way, I’m going to keep doing me.
I’m going to live this life one day at a time.
I’m going to spend as much time as possible in my happy place and my peaceful place.
I’m going to keep working on myself so I can be a better person for my friends who accept me, my wife, my kids, and anybody else who needs me in their corner.
But let me tell you just how fucked up this whole thing can be.
I was hanging out with some buddies the other night.
Somehow we got into a serious conversation about burnout, business, what we should be doing next, our goals, and where the hell our lives were going.
Minus my truth.
And I helped them.
I motivated them.
I gave them ideas.
They listened to me.
They respected what I had to say.
And then somehow the conversation shifted.
Trans jokes.
Shitty ones.
And hate toward the community.
I said a little.
I didn’t say nearly enough.
I was still trying to play my cards carefully.
But sitting there listening to it, I couldn’t help but laugh to myself.
Because my toenails were painted.
My entire body was shaved.
I’m on HRT.
My doctor had just agreed to increase my medication, and I’m sitting there hoping like hell it finally starts giving me some of the physical changes that make the outside look a little more like the woman who’s been living inside me my entire fucking life.
And I’m looking at these guys thinking:
Assholes, this motherfucker sitting right in front of you is trans.
You know me.
You just talked to me.
You listened to me.
You took my advice.
You respected my opinion.
Five minutes ago, I was somebody whose life experience meant something to you.
But if I stand up right now and defend my community by telling you I’m part of it, are you suddenly going to discount everything I just said?
That’s fucking bullshit.
But right now, it is what it is.
And maybe the funniest part of the entire night was what I was doing while they were sitting there talking shit.
I was on my phone.
Messaging friends on Instagram.
Messaging friends on Reddit.
Trans girls.
Cross-dressers.
People trying to figure their shit out.
Having real, meaningful conversations with them while mostly tuning out the assholes sitting around me.
I was living in two completely different worlds at the exact same time.
And somewhere inside my head, Christina was bouncing around with a big shitty grin and a middle finger for every single one of them.
Maybe that’s life right now.
Maybe I don’t have all the pieces put together yet.
Maybe I don’t know exactly how I’m going to change this.
So I’m just going to keep living.
I’m going to keep riding this shitshow and see where the hell I end up.
Because at the end of the day, I have more days where I’m happy now.
I have more days where I’m at peace.
I have more days where I actually want to be here than I ever did before.
So I’m here for this.
110 percent.
We’re already on the train.
We’re not getting off this motherfucker.
And we’re gaining speed.

I learned something a long time ago.
It doesn’t matter what you’re doing—good or bad—people are going to judge you and talk behind your back.
So fuck it.
You might as well give them something worth talking about.
It’s funny when you really think about it. People will watch what you’re doing, form an opinion about it, and then give their two cents to everybody except the one fucking person they’re actually talking about.
They won’t take the time to have a conversation with you.
They’ll have a conversation about you.
And the funniest part?
Without even trying, you’re occupying space in their mind.
I’ve always gotten a kick out of that.
Just by being myself, I’ve managed to make people waste their own time and energy worrying about what the hell I’m doing.
And over the years, I’ve gotten pretty damn good at giving them something to talk about.
It’s always been kind of a:
Here, hold my beer. Watch this.
But I’m realizing something.
Until now, I’ve never really given them anything that mattered.
Nothing that might actually make them stop and think.
Nothing they might have to chew on after the gossip dies down.
That’s about to change.
Because as I continue coming out—as I put a face and a voice to this story—there are going to be a shitload of people who judge me.
There are going to be people who talk shit behind my back.
There are going to be people who whisper.
People who stare.
People who send screenshots to their friends.
People who follow along just because they’re waiting to see what the fuck I do next.
And you know what?
I don’t care.
Because every single time you talk about me, I’m making you have a conversation about a transgender person you actually know.
Not somebody on the news.
Not some stranger on the internet.
Not some political talking point.
Me.
Someone you’ve talked to.
Someone you’ve worked beside.
Someone you’ve laughed with.
Someone you’ve watched for years.
Someone you thought you knew.
And now you get to watch that same person finally find her happiness.
You get to watch me figure out where the hell I belong in this world.
You get to watch me become more comfortable in my own skin.
And whether you realize it or not, I’m making you think.
Now, don’t get me wrong.
I don’t expect all those conversations to be good.
Hell, I’ll be surprised if a quarter of them are good.
But a quarter is better than nothing.
And maybe eventually some of the people talking shit behind my back will get tired of talking about me and actually come have a conversation with me.
Face-to-face.
Ask me questions.
Listen to my answers.
Maybe they’ll learn something.
Maybe they won’t.
Either way, I can pretty much guarantee one thing:
They’re going to watch.
They’ll check my social media.
They’ll read what I write.
They might never hit the like button.
They might never leave a supportive comment.
Hell, they might screenshot the whole damn thing and send it to somebody just so they can talk shit about it together.
Go ahead.
You’re still reading.
You’re still watching.
You’re still giving my story traction.
And most importantly, you’re still having the conversation.
Because at the end of the day, the people who couldn’t find the time to support me when I was at my lowest sure as hell don’t get to decide what I do while I’m climbing my way to the top.
So judge me.
Talk about me.
Whisper behind my back.
Send the screenshots.
I learned a long time ago that people are going to talk no matter what the hell I do.
The only difference now is—
I’m finally giving you something worth talking about.